Blu-ray Backers Dispute HD DVD Sales Claims

The Blu-ray Disc camp is disputing recent claims by the HD DVD camp that despite some recent setbacks for HD DVD (such as Blockbuster Video deciding to deal only with Blu-ray titles in most of its outlets), HD DVD sales are about three times higher in Europe than its lone next-gen disc competitor.

The Blu-ray Disc camp is disputing recent claims by the HD DVD camp that despite some recent setbacks for HD DVD (such as Blockbuster Video deciding to deal only with Blu-ray titles in most of its outlets), HD DVD sales are about three times higher in Europe than its lone next-gen disc competitor.

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The Blu-ray Disc camp is disputing recent claims by the HD DVD camp that despite some recent setbacks for HD DVD (such as Blockbuster Video deciding to deal only with Blu-ray titles in most of its outlets), HD DVD sales are about three times higher in Europe than its lone next-gen disc competitor. Blu-ray says the claims are misleading.

The European-based HD DVD Promotion Group has been telling the media that Toshiba-brand HD DVD players currently account for nearly 75 percent of all European HD disc player sales. The group’s figures primarily are based on standalone units. But the Blu-ray Disc Association European Promotions Committee countered that using only those numbers is misleading because they exclude Blu-ray drives sold with PlayStation 3 game consoles and with computers.

The Blu-ray camp said if those additional figures were taken into account, Blu-ray sales would actually account for up to 95 percent of all next-gen disc sales, according to Reg Hardware.

In turn, HD DVD backers counter attack by charging that a sizeable majority of PS3 and PC owners do not buy HD movie titles, which HD DVD proponents say the next-gen disc players are really all about.

On a separate issue, both Blu-ray and HD DVD camps are under investigation by the European Union Commission, which began probing into the next-gen disc war nearly a year ago (HD Notebook, August 2006).

In making its move, Blockbuster said about 70 percent of its rentals of next-gen discs fall into the Blu-ray camp, and it sees this as a sign from consumers that the marketplace has already made its choice in the format battle.

While sales of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc package content slowly edges its way up the sales meter when new titles are released, in Europe (to a higher degree than in North America), standard DVDs still dwarf next-gen sales, leaving the latter formats in the low single-digit category when considering percentages.

Despite some talk of a possible temporary slowdown in production of next-gen DVD players by both camps, Sony and about a dozen other studios announced the release of 75 movie titles on Blu-ray Disc in Japan, including global blockbuster "The Da Vinci Code," according to the Associated Press . Over in the Toshiba HD D

Surprise! In competing press briefings on Sunday, the eve of CES2007, representatives for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc used different sets of figures and apples-and-oranges methods of determining usage of their respective players in order to claim victory in the DVD format war.

On the surface, the U.S. sales figures from the first several days of this current holiday season are looking way up for HD DVD proponents, who captured slightly more than 60 percent of the next-gen player market against Blu-ray Disc in these early days. But as usual, when the number crunchers put aside those standalone figures and add in the number of PlayStation 3 game consoles sold, Blu-ray comes out the clear leader.

Although its overall impact is yet to be determined, a small but growing number independent film studios in Europe (as well as some video disc production firms) are so far choosing to go with HD-DVD from Toshiba over Blu-ray Disc from Sony, thanks to what a global newspaper says is a "strong support program by the HD-DVD camp, and concerns over the price of Blu-ray technology."